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Visiting a farm meant lots of opportunities to take portraits of a different kind. Unlike portraits of people where care must be taken in choosing a flattering angle to shoot at or selecting a lens focal length that doesn’t cause subjects to look distorted (e.g. big nose, disproportionate head size, etc), animals aren’t as fussy as their human counterparts.

In fact, the animals in the next couple of shots took a huge liking towards my camera and kept trying sniff out the source of the rapid “click, click, click” sounds. This allowed me to get very close and take shots from a unique close up angle.

Sheep are known to be timid, but not this one. This sheep got so close he left snot and moisture on my lens, but nothing a quick swab with the t-shirt couldn’t fix. Also, when they are in so close, you absolutely have to go into manual focus mode. I chose to focus on the eyes and leave the rest of the sheep’s face a blur.

While I’m a strong advocate of getting out there to make or chase the pictures you want, sometimes, it pays to be patient for good pictures to come your way, literally. I was sitting on top of a log reviewing pictures when this curious alpaca saw me from afar. Slowly and gradually, he started making his way towards me and before I knew it, he was a mere few feet away. Sensing the opportunity, I lifted my camera up as if offering food and he couldn’t help but stick his nose in for a whiff. Two clicks were all I had before he decided to move on to greener pastures, so to speak.

During our 3 days at the Margaret River region, we stayed at the Margaret River Hideaway, a unique accommodation featuring 3 cottages situated right on a farm.

Every day at 9am sharp, the owner would take visitors around the farm to feed various animals like ducks, chickens, peacocks, sheep, alpacas, and cows. It was a perfect experience for Ashley as she got to interact with all the animals up close. Even the huge cows didn’t scare her!

Baa… get out of the pen!

Eggs are Ashley’s favourite food and today she got to gather them in person.

Feeding the alpacas.

Speaking of alpacas, they are highly prized for their very soft wool and are great additions to farms because they protect sheep from wolves. They are cautious but curious animals, and the two alpacas that were on the farm followed us around the place even after the feeding was over. I think they just wanted a photo.

Best friends forever!


View the full Margaret River Hideaway gallery here.

While many people know that the colonization of Australia began when convicts were shipped there from Britian, most probably wouldn’t know the difference between a convict and a criminal in the context of an early Australian prison. Convicts were basically people who were sentenced in Britain whereas criminals were sentenced in Australia itself.

The main prison block

One of the well known attractions in Fremantle is the Fremantle Prison, which was built in the 1850s but decommissioned in 1991. The prison consisted of 4 divisions, each one meant for different categories of offenders, with the 4th division reserved for the worst of them all (e.g. murderers). A total of 44 people were hung in this prison with the last execution taking place in 1964. Australia has since abolished the death penalty, although I don’t think the same would happen soon in Singapore.

The Anglican Chapel – Interestingly, the words to the sixth commandment on the Ten Commandments painted on the wall behind the altar had been modified from "Thou shalt not kill" to "Thou shall do no murder". The former would have seemed rather hypocritical given that the gallows were still being used and England was involved in so many wars.

During our visit, we signed-up for the “Doing Time Tour” – an hour long walk around the prison compounds to see the various cell blocks, chapel and gallows. For the more adventurous, there is also a tunnel tour where visitors explore the labyrinth of passages beneath the prison.

Prison art – Rules forbidding painting or drawing on walls were relaxed after it was found to calm violent prisoners.

Prior to the tour starting, the guide told me a story about how two recent tourists with high end cameras had their equipment fail on them when trying to take pictures inside the execution chamber. It made my skin crawl, but thankfully, my faithful D3 didn’t skip a beat. I even took a picture of the noose but was quite disappointed at the lack of any mysterious ghostly silhouette in the final picture.

Full Fremantle Prison gallery here.

Day 2 saw us, um, oversleeping a little resulting in us having to take a train down to the port city of Fremantle instead of one of the local cruise ships.

The Leeuwin – A 55-metre three-masted sail training ship that’s still in service.

Only 30 minutes away by train from Perth Central train station, Fremantle is unofficially regarded as Western Australia’s second capital. Unlike Perth, Fremantle’s period architecture has largely been preserved since there has never been much economic benefit from knocking them down.

The Round House – This small prison, which had only 8 cells, was eventually turned into the living quarters for the chief constable and his family during the turn of the 20th-century.

What struck me upon arriving was how empty the city was. Granted, it was Boxing Day and most people were probably indoors rather than roaming the streets, but it did feel awfully like a ghost town while walking down some of the streets.

Inside the Fremantle Markets

Full Fremantle gallery here.

We arrived in Perth on Christmas afternoon and checked into Hotel Sullivan along Mount Bay Road. It turned out to be a really great location for two reasons. Firstly, it was right next to Kings Park, one of the largest parks in the world in terms of natural bushland located right at the heart of a city. The park also offered spectacular views of Perth’s CBD and surrounding coastal areas. Secondly, we were right next to a hospital, which was reassuring when you’re traveling with a very pregnant wife…

View of the Perth skyline from Kings Park

Perth city skyline at sunset

State War Memorial Cenotaph at Kings Park

Full day 1 gallery here.

Took a short trip to Perth with Zhiyi, Ashley, Alvin, Cheryl and Charlotte over the Christmas and New Years period (25 – 31 Dec 2008). It turned out to be a very enjoyable trip, except for the small fact that this being the holidays and peak travel season meant that a lot of places like restaurants were either closed or fully booked on certain days.

Nonetheless, Perth and its surrounding towns still offered a lot of great scenery and coupled with fine weather (20 to 30 degrees C and low humidity) made walking and driving around very pleasant. Getting around and talking to people also didn’t seem as intimidating as compared to the busier and more cosmopolitan city of Sydney.

We spent the next few days hanging around the city area, Fremantle and driving out to Margaret River and Pemberton before flying back on New Year’s Eve.

More pictures to come in following posts! Sifting through 17GB of holiday photos to upload isn’t exactly the most relaxing thing to do after a tiring holiday.

Full gallery here (uploads still ongoing!).

I’ve known Fernando & Grace for only a few months since they joined Hope Church Singapore so you can imagine my surprise when I was invited by this lovely couple to photograph their wedding alongside Merv on 19 Sep. Merv, as many of you know, is a veteran wedding photographer. Check out his cool wedding galleries here and I guarantee that you’ll wish you knew him when you tied the knot. In fact, he has gotten so good that he believes that he can somehow photograph his own wedding. We’ll see…

Anyway, the initial enthusiasm was soon met by a lot of self-doubt given that this was my first time shooting a wedding. Now, I’ve attended plenty of weddings, heck even went through one myself, but my preconceived notion till now of wedding photographers were those annoying people that interrupt you in the middle of your dinner to pose for photos. Or, who walk around with Tupperware on top of their cameras. Nonetheless, I never cease to be amazed when I look at wedding portfolios like this and this. Somehow, somewhere, in between interrupting people’s dinners, these fine local photographers manage to capture photos that are so magical they transcend merely being a record of history into a timeless piece of art.

I had big shoes to fill.

And thank God everything worked out in the end. “We have faith in you!” reassured Pris, F&G’s wedding coordinator, a few days before the wedding. Thanks for believing in me and I hope these photos go some way towards repaying that faith!

Click here for the full gallery

And, some selections here:

The beautiful bride

The rings

The happy bridesmaids

Fiesta at the entrace

YAM SENG!

Also, check out Merv’s excellent gallery here.

There are so many things I miss about Hawaii – the cool weather (hot but not humid), beaches (white sand and turquoise water), food (everything is served twice the portion of what we have in Singapore), friendly people (aloha and mahalo!) and shopping (everyone thinks I’m a Jap tourist) among others. But what I really miss is being able to end the day looking into the golden sunset with not a ship in sight along the horizon. I can’t remember when I last saw a good sunset in Singapore…

These pictures were taken along the beach at the Hilton Waikola on Big Island (Hawai’i).

A big CONGRATULATIONS to MC and Sarah for being the second couple in IslandHope (ok, half couple since Sarah is from another CG) to tie the knot after WL and Yixi last year. The wedding was held at True Way Presbyterian Church which is right next to Queenstown MRT. And yet, my taxi driver still got lost but that’s another story…

I love church weddings. Every one I attend somehow or another brings back memories of my own. The flurry of activities taking place in the morning (decorating the church, folding church bulletins, rehearsals, sound checks, catering, etc), the nervous groom frantically memorising his vows, the restless immediate families who arrived much earlier (or sould I say on time!) compared to 90% of the guests. Ah, nothing like the surge of stress induced adrenaline and heightened sense of anticipation built up over many months of preparation to make one look forward to that brief but special moment where the couple exchange rings and seal their union with a kiss!

For this wedding, I was asked to help out as an emcee, an honour I gladly accepted. I mean, can’t expect MC to do it right? (Ok, bad pun! *hyuks*) My sidekick who did the Mandarin translation was Angie from WAM group and it was a privilege being able to work alongside this veteran emcee of a dozen or so weddings!

Emcees For Hire! Good, cheap (i.e. free) and full of style.

Photo courtesy of Jo

The rest of the Hope Islanders were also out in full force with Pris and Ming doing P&W and Gab leading the team of ushers including Changky and Miriam. Merv, Reina and Jo were armed to the teeth with their DSLRs and made quick work of all photo ops and Kodak moments that arose. In addition, there was also a hilarious multimedia presentation put together by Merv and Reina that entertained the crowd.

Pris: Woo, my one is coming up. Better chope some ideas from this hilarious presentation…

Photo courtesy of Jo

All in all, it was a really memorable wedding and I’m truly happy to see another dear brother and sister in church tie the knot. I have faith that God will really bless this union as both MC and Sarah have never ceased to be a blessing to those around them. Now that they’ve also got a place of their own and with MC recently taking over the reins of IslandHope, I’m sure they will bless His kingdom even more!

One for the IslandHope memories! (Click on the image for a larger original)

Here’s a picture of Ashley and me unwinding after the ceremony. I was quite surprised but this girl has rythm, being able to beat the drums to a very consistent beat and all!

Photo courtesy of Reina

Had to go on yet another business trip – this time to Manila – on the weekend of 9 Jun 2007. This trip was made all the more interesting by the fact that I was born there and had not been back for almost 28 years. More specifically, I was born at St Luke’s Hospital in Quezon City during the time when the late President Fidel Marcos was still mayor of St Juan. I was too young to remember this, of course.

As I had not been back for such a long time, I knew that I had to take some nice photos to show my parents. For that, I armed myself with Merv’s trusty Nikon D80 DSLR camera and equally potent but intimidating looking 70-200mm F/2.8 lens. For those who don’t know how this lens looks like, it is almost as long as my forearm, and fatter! In fact, thanks to my equipment, I even got into an interesting conversation with an air stewardess as I was taking this photo.

One of Philippine’s many many many islands.

SIA Girl: Hi, are you a professional photographer?
Me: Noleh, I just take for fun.
SIA Girl: Oh, your camera looks very big and powerful.
Me: Yah! (I then spend the next 15 mins blabbering non-stop about the advantages of a DSLR and its system of interchangeable lenses and bodies)
SIA Girl: So complicated… (at this point politely excusing herself to avoid passing out)

In retrospect, I should have just suppressed the geek in me and asked her to help me take a picture instead. There’s nothing like fond memories of sitting in a nearly empty Business Class munching away on steak with a glass of champagne in one hand. Ok, so maybe it was just sparkling apple juice but still.

Jeepney! Cheapest form of transport in Manila.

Though my schedule was very intense, thank God, I still managed to squeeze in a few hours of time to take photos. Thanks to a colleague’s recommendation, we visited Intramuros, a famous historical area in Manila. We certainly weren’t disappointed, having had a chance to take pictures of Fort Santiago and Manila Cathedral. Later in the evening, we also headed down to Manila Bay, where the sunset is reputed to be one of the best in the world. Unfortunately, due to overly cloudy skies, there wasn’t much of one in the end.

Other highlights of the trip included the amazing buffet breakfast at Shangri-La Hotel, tasting authentic Filipino food and listening to live music at the Green Belt.

Lastly, more photos on my PBase album here!